CHAPTER XXVII. "OF THE CRAWLING TIDE."

What happened during the days immediately following the fatal battle of St Aubin du Cormier, Ralph Lisle never clearly knew. All he could remember was an indistinct nightmare of strange faces, rough and coarse, sometimes fierce and cruel, but amid them all he always saw a pale oval face, with large, wistful, brown eyes, and masses of wavy, dark hair, and then he felt quiet. He could recollect nothing until one night he seemed suddenly to awake, and found himself in a low, rough room, with a strong smell of burnt peat, and a fresh breeze blowing in through an opening in one side. It was nearly dark, save where the bright light of the moon fell upon the rude clay floor, all littered with straw and refuse. Through the opening, which served for window and door alike, he could see a broad gleam of glancing light which he did not trouble himself to think about. He wondered where he could be. There were no sounds in the room. He raised his head to look round. He could not do it. Was he still in a dream? he wondered. Why could he not move himself easily? He lay still again, and must have dozed off, for when he again looked round there were some figures in the room, and one--that of a girl--was softly stealing away from him towards a tall man, and he could hear her say in a low tone,--

"He is sleeping gently."

"That is well, my daughter, go thou to rest now. Marie will see that he is cared for."

Ralph made a little movement; the girl stopped, and looked round. There was a small rushlight on a table; its light fell on her face. Where had he seen that gentle, winsome head and eyes? Ralph said,--

"Where am I? What has happened? Why, what's come to my voice?"

"Oh, father, I am so glad!" cried the girl, and turned quickly back to the couch where Ralph lay. The tall man stepped across the room, taking the rushlight in his hand.

Ralph could not recall the face or figure; he felt sure he had never seen either, and yet he had heard the voice.

"Thou art on the road to health, my son," said the man. "Thou hast been like to die for a week past."

"Where am I?"

"Safe in the cottage of a hind. But thou shalt know all to-morrow an thou art in trim to hear news."

So saying, the tall figure removed the light, and in a few minutes more all was quiet in the cottage.

The next morning found Ralph much better. He now learnt where he was, and who had saved him.

"But there is great risk still," said the girl, "and I know not how we may fare. Jean is very rough, and I doubt he is not to be trusted far. His wife Marie is as true as steel, but alack! we English are not overmuch liked, and I hear there are men-at-arms beating the country side. But now thou art better, we can move," she added cheerily.

Ralph saw how nobly these strangers had acted by him. He could not understand why. They had risked their lives to save him, and this, too, when the chances were very small that they could ever nurse him through the fever, which resulted from the exhaustion, heat, and wounds of that dreadful day of St Aubin. He did not yet know all.

"But who are you?" he asked languidly.

"Ah, now, who do you think?"

"You are not--no, you can't be. Well, I don't know who you are. But I seem to have seen you before."

"Where? Can't you call it to mind?"

"Was it in the lists at Carisbrooke?"

"In sooth it was," said the girl, laughing; "and somewhere else, too."

"Not at Appuldurcombe, was it?"

"Ay, marry was it, and elsewhere, too. At it again." But then seeing the effort of memory was too much for Ralph in his weak state, the girl added,--"There, you can't think now. Lie still, and I will tell you. Do you mind lending some poor vagrants a pony at Thruxton? Do you mind a certain night, when you were nigh going over the edge of a cliff near St Catherine's Down? You never knew who it was that spoke to you that night in the mist? And you never knew who sent you the glove? Ah, well! 'twas lucky for you you wore it, or father would have knocked you off like all the others. And why do you think I did it?" she said, with an arch smile.

"I can't tell," said Ralph, dreamily.

"Well, but you might think." Then seeing that Ralph's thoughts were far away, she added, in a pitying tone,--"Why, because thou wast so kind to father and me that day at Thruxton. You little knew who I was."

"And who are you?" said Ralph absently.

"Oh, that is a merry conceit. Don't you know now?"

"No; tell me. How can I tell?"

"Why, I'm Aunt Yolande's niece."

"Aunt Yolande's niece!" cried Ralph in amazement, utterly astounded at the unexpected answer, and not at all able to take in the truth of the remark.

"Yes I am, although you may find it hard to credit, and my father is Sir George Lisle, and he fled for his life from the field of Stoke, trusting to the generosity of the Captain of the Wight, who, he thought, was his greatest enemy, but whom he knew to be a very noble knight."

"And he was not wrong," said Ralph, sadly but proudly.

"Nay he was not wrong. But he tried to give his life for the Captain's, when he found out how great an injury he had done him. Do you remember Sister Agnes that day I saw you at Appuldurcombe? Do you know who she is?"

"No. Who is she?"

"She is my mother," said Magdalen, softly and sadly.

"Your mother!" said Ralph in astonishment. "But she is a nun."

"Yes, she is now; but she was Lady Lisle. I can't call her much to mind at that time, for she left me when I was only four years old."

"Why did she leave you?" said Ralph, becoming more interested.

"'Tis a sad story, and I know not if I know all myself. But she was not happy, and could not bear her life. She took the veil in London, and became a Sister of St Clare."

"And how did you find out she was your mother?"

"Do you mind that night in the snow when father and the Captain fought? You did not know it was the Hermit of St Catherine's and I who came. I only found out too late; but I could not have done anything to prevent their fighting had I known sooner. After father was so sore wounded, the Hermit, who has been a knight himself, and knew father as a boy, took him to the good Sisters of Appuldurcombe to be nursed, and for a long time father was between life and death. In his ravings, Sister Agnes--that's my mother, you know--who took her turn to nurse him with the others--but not at first, because she had been very ill herself--heard him call her by her real name, and she knew him, of course, directly she saw him. She then for the first time heard how cruelly he had mistrusted her in her flight, and that he--well, she made up her mind to tell him everything if he should get well. I don't know what happened, but father became quite altered. He was a long time getting well; and then you all went on that dolorous journey. But you never saw me passing you that evening near Wootton. Father's life was at stake if he should be discovered; and he heard that there were spies of the King's looking out for him; for a rumour had got abroad of an unknown knight, wearing a Yorkist collar, having been at a tourney at Carisbrooke--and it might have been the missing Lord Lovell. Well (but I shall never get done), we managed to get on board a Norman ship of St Vaast, come over with salt, which took us over to Barfleur; and then we heard for the first time that Eustace Bowerman had gotten over there, and was being made much of because he said he could tell the French governor of the province all about what was going on here. I also heard he had vowed to kill some one against whom he had a deadly hate, and I knew that must be you. As Master Bowerman was a likely-looking youth, and well spoken, and not wanting in a ready address and lying tongue, he got on marvellous well, and indeed he helped the French; for they, who thought the Captain of the Wight was a very powerful prince, seeing he was uncle to our Queen, and who dreaded he would bring over a very powerful meynie, were full glad to hear how small a force he could muster, and that made them right hardy and joyous; so that they fought on that bitter day with greater heart than they are wont to do when they meet with us. For they knew right well that those other seventeen hundred in red crosses were but poor weak Bretons. My father, who was a well-known Yorkist, all of which faction were welcome in France as being useful to keep our King in check, was readily allowed his freedom, and he offered his sword to the Seigneur de la Trimouille in the hope he might save some of our poor men's lives, but most of all he longed to save the Captain of the Wight, and to tell him how sad he was at the wrong he had done him. He never knew how vilely those caitiffs had set upon you until I told him, and he always hated Bowerman ever after, and Bowerman returned his hate."

This account had astonished Ralph. It seemed so surprising--so like a tale told by a jongleur. That he should have helped his relative, Yolande's brother, and her own niece, in such an accidental way; that this should have led to his triumph at the tourney, and finally to the saving of his own life, seemed so like a romance, that he could not think it was all true.

"And so that is your father, Sir George Lisle, and you are my cousin after all," said the young man dreamily. "Well, I shall believe it all, I dare to say, some day, but now I seem more in a dream than ever."

"But here is father himself," said Magdalen, as the tall figure of the knight entered the room.

Ralph would have risen and done reverence due to the rank and kinship of this man who had so mysteriously interfered in his life, since he left Thruxton without his knowing it.

Sir George, however, forbade his moving, and greeted his young kinsman as kindly as his somewhat austere manner would let him.

"So thou knowest all now, my young cousin. The next matter is to get thee safe to St Malo or Dinan, where I hear the Marechal de Rieux is holding out. Ah, the bad captainship of that old soldier! Had--but there, 'tis no use--'tis no use," broke off Sir George Lisle sadly, and almost fiercely.

Magdalen tried to turn the conversation to other matters, but after several attempts she gave it up, and they all became silent.

As Ralph grew stronger, his memory came back to him, and he asked for details of the battle. He knew they were defeated, but he did not know the extent of the catastrophe. Gradually the fearful nature of the defeat dawned upon him; but it was long before he could realise it. The noble Captain of the Wight, Maurice Woodville, all these strong and lusty men, Dicky Cheke, all gone! It was too much. Ralph turned away, and sobbed. The utter desolation of it all, his own physical prostration, and the dreary prospect before him, completely overwhelmed him, although he did not think of himself. He wished he had died. He did not care to live. For some days after he learnt the news, Ralph was listless and morose, and the knight seemed nearly as miserable. It was with the utmost difficulty the girl was able to get either to take any food, and she, poor child, at last was beginning to lose all interest in anything. Their life was very uncomfortable. There was nothing to divert them from their own sad thoughts. The Breton peasants with whom they had taken refuge belonged to one of the Breton nobles, who had fallen at St Aubin, and had hitherto proved themselves faithful enough. But there was nothing beyond their natural good nature to keep them so. It was true the money the fugitives had brought with them was ample payment for the services performed, but when that was gone there seemed little left to restrain the Bretons betraying them. In spite of the proud boast of the Seigneur de Rohan--"Jamais Breton ne fit trahison"--there was only too much likelihood that in a few days the three fugitives would be delivered up to their enemies.

One day as they were sitting listlessly outside the cottage on a boulder of granite, gazing wistfully at the sea sparkling among the innumerable rocks which encumbered the large bay before them, the peasant woman came out, and looking about her, approached the girl. After talking earnestly for some time she went back to the house, and the girl turned to her father with a face paler than usual.

"Father," she said, "we must get away at once. Marie says she has heard men-at-arms are coming this evening, and we have but little time to escape. She has given us warning at the peril of her life, so she says; and there is an Englishman, she tells me, who has been asking about us all round the country. He is a one-eyed young man, she says."

Ralph looked up. He had now heard of the treachery of Bowerman. He now knew that the knight who had saved him was no other but Sir George Lisle, and that the girl whose glove he had worn in the tournament was Magdalen Lisle, niece of Yolande, and heiress to all the Lisle estates, if only her father were restored to his proper position.

Magdalen had taken no pains to conceal her dislike of Bowerman, and her pleasure on finding that her father no longer trusted him, and that he equally shared her dislike, was very great. In the necessity of their prompt escape from the battlefield, all examination of the dead was precluded, and neither Sir George Lisle nor his daughter knew whether Bowerman had survived. But now Marie told them of this Englishman, the girl's fears were aroused. Bowerman had urged his suit with her father during their intercourse in France, and Sir George Lisle had received his advances very coldly, and Magdalen dreaded his finding them, especially as her father's conduct in defending the wounded Captain of the Wight must have been observed.

The danger was imminent. The little hut where they had taken refuge was on the edge of a rocky bay not far from St Malo, but the intervening country was scoured by the French troops, and escape by land was next to impossible.

"We must go by sea," said Sir George. "There is Jean's old boat."

"But the tide is out, father! look where it is!" said Magdalen, pointing in dismay to the long stretch of sand, strewn with boulders and piles of sharp rocks protruding in all directions, while away on the edge of this waste the sea was breaking on a reef of ugly points of granite, black with the weather and time, and grinning like the teeth of some wild animal, amid the foam and froth of the sea. It was too true; the tide would not come in enough to float the clumsy boat before it would be dark, and from what Marie said, the men-at-arms would be there before dusk.

"We must try and push the boat down," said Sir George.

They went back to the hut, and searching in the shed where the few tools belonging to the labourer were kept, Ralph found some spars that would serve for rollers.

Sir George had taken the precaution, when they escaped under cover of the darkness from the field of St Aubin, to bring his own armour and that of Ralph Lisle with him. He had dismissed his servants, bidding them shift for themselves, and the horses had been sold by Jean to provide money for their expenses, and also to prevent suspicion arising, if such animals were seen in the neighbourhood of his cottage.

Carrying to the boat the few effects they intended taking with them, and hastily collecting such food as Marie could provide them with, the fugitives went down the beach to where the boat lay. They anxiously looked at her. It seemed utterly impossible they could move her. Ralph was still very weak, and they soon found their fears were too true. They could not possibly move it.

"'Twill be three hours yet before she floats," said Sir George.

"Any way, we can carry out the anchor as far as this warp will let us," said Ralph, "'twill give us greater help to pull her out, and here's an old sail we can set all ready for the first lift of the tide. The wind is right off the land."

Anything being better than standing still doing nothing, they set up the mast, and got the old brown sail ready for hoisting. Everything was now in, when Magdalen suddenly exclaimed,--

"Why, see how fast the tide is rising! It is already past that reef of rocks there! It won't be nearly as long before she floats as we thought."

The tide was indeed rising fast, and the distant reef of rocks had disappeared entirely. A few jagged peaks were sticking up here and there on some of the higher patches of rock, soon to be hidden by the inrushing tide, leaving their sharp points a few feet below the surface, with nothing to show their dangerous position.

The sun was setting over the low, sandy shore on the western side of the bay. The long shadows of some of the strangely-shaped rocks stretched far across the yellow sand, and the shrill cry of the sea-mew called to its mate. In a few minutes more the sun would set, and the grey mist of the sea would come creeping over the hot land from the cool ocean. The tide had now reached the boat; the anchor was already covered.

"Get in Magdalen," said her father; "we will stay to push her off, if may be."

Sir George and Ralph had both taken off their shoes, and, bare-legged, were standing in the fast rising tide.

Suddenly Magdalen saw a shadow moving over the sand--she looked round.

"Oh father, there they are," she cried in horror.